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Most of the luxuries, and many of the so-called comforts of life
are not only not indispensable,
but positive hindrances to the elevation of mankind.
- Henry David Thoreau
Related topics: Wisdom Values Simple Simplicity
The language of Friendship is not words, but meanings.
It is an intelligence above language.
- Henry David Thoreau
We know but a few men, a great many coats and breeches.
- Henry David Thoreau
Friends... they cherish one another's hopes.
They are kind to one another's dreams.
- Henry David Thoreau
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- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
Front yards are not made to walk in, but, at most, through,
and you could go in the back way.
- Henry David Thoreau
The most I can do for my friend is simply be his friend.
- Henry David Thoreau
There is danger that we lose sight of
what our friend is absolutely,
while considering what she is to us alone.
- Henry David Thoreau
The greatest compliment that was ever paid me
was when one asked me what I thought,
and attended to my answer.
- Henry David Thoreau
How could youths better learn to live
than by at once trying the experiment of living?
- Henry David Thoreau
The most I can do for my friend is simply to be his friend.
I have no wealth to bestow on him.
If he knows that I am happy in loving him, he will want no other reward.
Is not friendship divine in this?
- Henry David Thoreau
Our life is frittered away by detail... simplify, simplify.
- Henry David Thoreau
Do what you love.
Know your own bone;
gnaw at it, bury it, unearth it,
and gnaw it still.
- Henry David Thoreau
Live your life, do your work, then take your hat.
- Henry David Thoreau
What is called genius is the
abundance of life and health.
- Henry David Thoreau
This world is but a canvas to our imagination.
- Henry David Thoreau
Old deeds for old people, and new deeds for new.
- Henry David Thoreau
Every generation laughs at the old fashions,
but follows religiously the new.
- Henry David Thoreau
Dreams are the touchstones of our character.
- Henry David Thoreau
May we so love as never to have occasion
to repent of our love!
- Henry David Thoreau
I would rather sit on a pumpkin and have it all to myself,
than be crowded on a velvet cushion.
- Henry David Thoreau
Ignorance and bungling with love
are better than wisdom and skill without.
- Henry David Thoreau
Not until we are lost
do we begin to understand ourselves.
- Henry David Thoreau
Generally speaking, a howling wilderness does not howl:
it is the imagination of the traveler that does the howling.
- Henry David Thoreau
I have a great deal of company in the house,
especially in the morning when nobody calls.
- Henry David Thoreau
The man who is dissatisfied with himself, what can he do?
- Henry David Thoreau
There is no remedy for love but to love more.
- Henry David Thoreau
The heart is forever inexperienced.
- Henry David Thoreau
In human intercourse the tragedy begins,
not when there is misunderstanding about words,
but when silence is not understood.
- Henry David Thoreau
The youth gets together his materials
to build a bridge to the moon,
or, perchance, a palace or temple on the earth,
and, at length, the middle-aged man
concludes to build a woodshed with them.
- Henry David Thoreau
Most men lead lives of quiet desperation
and go to the grave with the song still in them.
- Henry David Thoreau
The squirrel that you kill in jest, dies in earnest.
- Henry David Thoreau
There are a thousand hacking at the branches of evil
to one who is striking at the root.
- Henry David Thoreau
Those whom we can love, we can hate;
to others we are indifferent.
- Henry David Thoreau
If misery loves company, misery has company enough.
- Henry David Thoreau
As a single footstep will not make a path on the earth,
so a single thought will not make a pathway in the mind.
To make a deep physical path, we walk again and again.
To make a deep mental path, we must think over and over
the kind of thoughts we wish to dominate our lives.
- Henry David Thoreau
The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation.
- Henry David Thoreau
I am sorry to think that you do not get a man's
most effective criticism until you provoke him.
Severe truth is expressed with some bitterness.
- Henry David Thoreau
An unclean person is universally a slothful one.
- Henry David Thoreau
To a philosopher all news,
as it is called, is gossip,
and they who edit and read it
are old women over their tea.
- Henry David Thoreau
Make the most of your regrets;
never smother your sorrow,
but tend and cherish it till it comes to have
a separate and integral interest.
To regret deeply is to live afresh.
- Henry David Thoreau
Nature puts no question and answers none which we mortals ask.
She has long ago taken her resolution.
- Henry David Thoreau
Where there is an observatory and a telescope,
we expect that any eyes will see new worlds at once.
- Henry David Thoreau
Every creature is better alive than dead,
men and moose and pine trees,
and he who understands it aright
will rather preserve its life than destroy it.
- Henry David Thoreau
Being is the great explainer.
- Henry David Thoreau
Only he is successful in his business who makes that pursuit
which affords him the highest pleasure sustain him.
- Henry David Thoreau
We must learn to reawaken and keep ourselves awake,
not by mechanical aid, but by
an infinite expectation of the dawn.
- Henry David Thoreau
Aim above morality.
Be not simply good,
be good for something.
- Henry David Thoreau
What you get by achieving your goals is not as important
as what you become by achieving your goals.
- Henry David Thoreau
We must walk consciously only part way toward our goal,
and then leap in the dark to our success.
- Henry David Thoreau
Nature will bear the closest inspection.
She invites us to lay our eye level with her smallest leaf,
and take an insect view of its plain.
- Henry David Thoreau
It is not desirable to cultivate
a respect for the law,
so much as for the right.
- Henry David Thoreau
What is once well done is done forever.
- Henry David Thoreau
Nothing makes the earth seem so spacious
as to have friends at a distance;
they make the latitudes and the longitudes.
- Henry David Thoreau
Be not merely good; be good for something.
- Henry David Thoreau
Any fool can make a rule, and any fool will mind it.
- Henry David Thoreau
To be admitted to Nature's hearth costs nothing.
None is excluded, but excludes himself.
You have only to push aside the curtain.
- Henry David Thoreau
Do not be too moral.
You may cheat yourself out of much life.
So aim above morality.
Be not simply good;
be good for something.
- Henry David Thoreau
Heaven is under our feet as well as over our heads.
- Henry David Thoreau
If a man loses pace with his companions,
perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer.
Let him step to the music which he hears,
however measured or far away.
- Henry David Thoreau
As you simplify your life,
the laws of the universe will be simpler;
solitude will not be solitude,
poverty will not be poverty,
nor weakness weakness.
- Henry David Thoreau
Distrust any enterprise that requires new clothes.
- Henry David Thoreau
The bluebird carries the sky on his back.
- Henry David Thoreau
It is best to avoid the beginnings of evil.
- Henry David Thoreau
I had three chairs in my house;
one for solitude, two for friendship, three for society.
- Henry David Thoreau
The perception of beauty is a moral test.
- Henry David Thoreau
If one advances confidently
in the direction of his dreams,
and endeavors to live
the life which he has imagined,
he will meet with success
unexpected in common hours.
- Henry David Thoreau
You must live in the present,
launch yourself on every wave,
find your eternity in each moment.
- Henry David Thoreau
Rather than love, than money, than fame, give me truth.
- Henry David Thoreau
No face which we can give to a matter
will stead us so well at last as the truth.
This alone wears well.
- Henry David Thoreau
The price of anything is the amount of life you exchange for it.
- Henry David Thoreau
It is never too late to give up our prejudices.
- Henry David Thoreau
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Jonathan Lockwood Huie
"The Philosopher of Happiness" - is the author of 100 Secrets for Living a Life You Love, co-author of Simply An Inspired Life, speaker, personal coach, and creator of the popular Daily Inspiration - Daily Quote free email.>
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